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The Long Goodbye Videos

The Long Goodbye Photos

Movie Info

"It's OK with me...." Applying his deconstructive eye to the "film noir" tradition, Robert Altman updated Raymond Chandler in his 1973 version of Chandler's novel, The Long Goodbye. Smart-aleck, cat-loving private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is certain that his friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) isn't a wife-killer, even after the cops throw Marlowe in jail for not cooperating with their investigation into Lennox's subsequent disappearance. Once he gets out of jail, Marlowe starts to conduct his own search when he discovers that mysterious blonde Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt), who hired him to find her alcoholic novelist husband Roger (Sterling Hayden), lives on the same Malibu street as the absent Lennox and his deceased spouse. As numerous variations on the title song play in unexpected places, Marlowe encounters a shady doctor (Henry Gibson), a bottle-wielding gangster (director Mark Rydell), and a guard aping Barbara Stanwyck (among other stars), before heading to Mexico to stumble onto the truth once and for all. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

... one of those movies that always flits through my mind when someone asks me to name my favorite movies of all time. I usually don't mention it, but it's always there, on the periphery. It's at least one of my two or three favorite Altmans.

Robert Altman's labyrinthine take on the Raymond Chandler classic is noir unburdened by a straight narrative - it's a triumph of atmosphere and attitude, a swiftly unfolding whodunit punctuated by subversive absurdities and shattering acts of violence.

Audience Reviews for The Long Goodbye

½

An intricate film noir satire that has all the elements that we expect from a Raymond Chandler story, only this time the protagonist of The Big Sleep is updated to the 1970s with a shocker in the end and a delicious melancholy song that will stay in your head for a long time.

Carlos Magalhães

Super Reviewer

So good, it hurts.

Kevin Cookman

Super Reviewer

A very interesting film for film buffs. It's not fantastic, but it's a film for the sake of film. If you watch film noir, you should check it out. This movie takes the character of Phillip Marlowe, and puts him in the 70s culture. It is partly a parody, but it is also toying with what you expect for a film noir.

Aj V

Super Reviewer

Altman's Neo-Noir is a very enjoyable film. It takes Philip Marlowe and places him right in the hedonism of the 1970s. Played excellently by Elliot Gould, our wise-cracking P.I. is lost in this new surrounding. The people have changed, animals loathe him, and the simple favors he does for friends only serves to get him entangled in the affairs of nefarious people. The story isn't very intriguing, but Altman's love of Noir really shines through. If anything, it is worth seeing an aged, grizzled Sterling Hayden and a young and frighteningly robust Arnold Schwarzenegger.